


Stretch

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [52]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 20:44:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16025648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “So the dudes all suck, but how’s camp?”“I want to sleep for seventeen days straight,” Jared says.“I feel you,” Bryce says, but he sounds like normal Bryce, so Jared’s suspicious. Jared doesn’t think Bryce needs seventeen days of sleep at all. Stupid…elite…athlete, or whatever.





	Stretch

Jared really hates dealing with the media. If he had a choice, there’d just be camp, but no. Hockey is a spectator sport after all, and these spectators care a whole lot more about their team than like, Hitmen fans. Or at least the media does. For some reason: the Oilers suck.

 _Still an Oiler, Jared_.

Jared grins and bears media day, even though he doesn’t think it’s fair that they made him put a Oilers jersey on twice in the space of months and forced him to smile through it. He probably looks like a complete loser in the picture they take of him for his player headshot, and not just because he’s wearing an Oilers jersey. He didn’t see the final, but he thinks he took ‘serious game face’ too far and it maybe came out ‘actual serial killer’ instead.

Thankfully the media’s way more interested than the returning players than him, unlike during the draft, so he talks to only a few people, and gets pretty easy questions lobbed his way. They’re definitely better than the snatches of what he’s hearing peppered at some of the returning Oilers, which sound like a nice version of ‘how are you going to suck less this year?’. 

Jared never thought he’d feel empathy for an Oiler, but ouch.

Also, it’s — well, if he’s an Oiler, is it empathy or self-interest, him wincing at the thought that might be him in a year or two? Hard to tell. 

Most of them seem to handle it pretty well — Jared guesses you get used to it if you suck year after year — but Brouwer’s on the fucking warpath after — maybe they asked if he was planning on actually contributing to anything other than penalty minutes this year? — and Jared is unfortunately directly in the path of him marching the hell out of the building.

“Whoa,” Jared says, and manages to get out of the way before Brouwer like, knocks him out with his shoulder. It’s a very near thing. “Didn’t think you were supposed to take out your own teammates,” Jared mutters, after Brouwer’s past. Maybe he sensed Jared’s thoughts? Though if he did, it’d probably be a fist instead of a shoulder clip, and Jared’s seen the guys on the receiving end of those punches: no thank you.

“I’d say his bark was worse than his bite,” Rogers says, from where he’s standing near the entrance. If Jared didn’t know better, he’d think he was hiding from the media. Who could blame him, honestly. “But.”

“He bites too?” Jared asks.

Rogers grimaces. “He’s dealing with some shit right now,” he says.

So’s Jared. He’s wearing a fucking _Oilers_ jersey. You still don’t see _him_ knocking over innocent prospects.

Man, there is no way that Brewer is going to get called Bruiser on a team Mike Brouwer is on. Not a chance in hell. 

“Anyone call him Bruiser before?” Jared asks, to confirm Brewer’s incipient heartbreak.

“Definitely one of his nicknames,” Rogers says. “Bowser, Brouwbeater.”

“So basically anything synonymous with violence works,” Jared says, and Rogers laughs like he’s hilarious.

“Basically,” Rogers says. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t usually extend to his own teammates.”

Rogers heads back toward the media scrum while Jared swallows nervously, because usually is not _never_. 

Welcome to Edmonton, he guesses.

*

Camp’s — Jared would say camp’s camp, but holy shit, no it isn’t. He didn’t think he was expecting anything, really, but clearly he was wrong, because he’s completely blindsided by how fucking _hard_ it is. With the Hitmen, even the Oilers prospects, there were varying skill levels, varying ages, strengths and weaknesses, all that, but it was dudes generally aged sixteen through twenty, maybe up to twenty-two among prospects, and while the twenty year olds were generally in better physical shape, just thanks to like…being done puberty and having trained for more years, the differences here are —

Jared has no idea how a roster so bad can have so many people in shape that makes him seethe with envy. Dudes that can bench twice what he can, dudes with ten years on him that can keep up with him during wind sprints, and god, don’t get Jared started about the scrimmages. They’re not no contact, and if anyone’s pulling their hits, Jared didn’t notice, because holy fuck do they hit hard.

Jared is suddenly very concerned he’s out of his league. Like. Literally. He knows he’s good, but — he just. He didn’t realise how big a leap he’d have to make, and he’s not sure he actually _can_. Like, not being down on himself — he’s put on weight, but not enough, he knows, didn’t need the cluck after getting weighed to tell him that. He’s worked on his strength, but it’s still not where it needs to be to play at an adult level. These aren’t the kinds of things he can change in a week, and he guesses he just thought — 

He doesn’t know what he thought, he just knows whatever he did think, he was wrong.

At the end of every day Jared drags his aching, exhausted body back to the hotel and almost faceplants into his dinner. He’d feel worse about it if it didn’t look like everyone else was doing the same thing.

After the first day, Brewer says, ‘harder than you thought, huh?’ over dinner, and Jared barely has the energy to nod his head. The next day Brewer doesn’t ask anything over dinner, because Brewer — kind of isn’t sitting with him for dinner.

Jared pretty much expected not to be able to shake Brewer off for the entirety of camp, preseason if they both made it to that point, but he ended up peeling off pretty quick to a group of dudes who’re closer to Bryce’s age than Jared’s. He’s nice enough in their room, he’s not ignoring Jared or anything, he just isn’t clinging to Jared like Jared thought he would.

Jared’s relieved. He’s not offended at all. Even a little.

“If the dude doesn’t like you, he’s a moron,” Bryce says. He picked up immediately when Jared called him after trudging his way up to their room. Brewer was hanging out with that other table. They were laughing when he left. Jared doesn’t know how they still have the energy to laugh.

“I’m not actually, like,” Jared says. “Likable. I know that.”

Bryce makes a very offended sound.

“Okay, like, friendly,” Jared says. “Obviously I’m very likable.”

“You are,” Bryce says, all chiding.

Jared grins down at his comforter. “Friendly, or likable?”

“Both,” Bryce says.

“Really?” Jared says. “ _Really_ , Bryce?”

“Okay, maybe you’re not like, the most friendly guy,” Bryce admits. “But that’s just because you have like, standards. And obviously Brewer doesn’t deserve to be your friend, so he can suck it.”

“I love how offended on my behalf you are right now,” Jared says. “It’s adorable.”

“It is not,” Bryce says, like Jared’s insulting him. “So the dudes all suck, but how’s camp?”

“I want to sleep for seventeen days straight,” Jared says.

“I feel you,” Bryce says, but he sounds like normal Bryce, so Jared’s suspicious. Jared doesn’t think Bryce needs seventeen days of sleep at all. Stupid…elite…athlete, or whatever.

*

The dudes don’t all actually suck, Jared guesses. Brewer _is_ okay, and Jared _is_ genuinely relieved he doesn’t have a shadow, because with how tired he is he knows he’d be short-tempered and snappish about it. The less socializing the better when Jared feels this way: he doesn’t care that much about making friends, but he doesn’t want to make, like, enemies.

Some of the other guys are okay too, Jared guesses. Rogers continues to be as nice as he was over the phone, and a few of the prospects are cool enough — not tainted by the Oilers thing yet, Jared guesses. On the Oilers roster itself, the little brother of the Flames’ enforcer Morris seems really nice, which is kind of funny, considering Luke Morris definitely doesn’t, both from what Jared’s seen on the ice and what little Bryce has said about him. Not much family resemblance there, except maybe in the face. Obviously Ben Morris’ face has had a few less punches directed its way, though. 

Seriously, though, Jared doesn’t spend much chatting with anyone. He needs to keep his head down, his head _in_ this. It’s training camp, not find your Bryce and Raf camp. Since he’s, you know, got them now. Plus like, there wasn’t any existential terror during Western Prospects Camp. Well. Maybe a little terror. He thinks he was pretty terrified when he realised he actually _liked_ Bryce, but that obviously worked out okay. And this is going to work out okay. He just…doesn’t know what okay will be.

Jared’s on the ride back to the hotel after another exhausting day when his phone buzzes. He’s hoping for Bryce, but it isn’t. It is, however, Bryce adjacent.

 _bryce marcus just asked me if I wanted to grab a drink after training camp_ , Chaz texts him. _I’m not gonna lie I’m fanboying a little._

Jared grins, wide. 

_You are lying._ , Jared texts Chaz. _You’re fanboying a lot._

 _true true_ , Chaz responds.

Jared wants to call Bryce, but obviously he can’t, since he’s surrounded by people and Bryce is like, right near Chaz, presumably, so he texts him instead with a simple _Thanks_ , and isn’t surprised when Bryce just sends back a string of question marks. _For Chaz_ , he sends.

 _no worrys hes a cool guy_ , Bryce texts, and Jared would let Chaz know that, make him fanboy even more, but, you know. Kind of impossible. Imagining Chaz’s face if he knew Bryce was BJ is sort of bittersweet: it’d be hilarious, but, you know. It’s never going to happen, and if it did, Bryce would be upset as fuck.

 _Have fun_ , he texts both of them separately. _I’ll just sit here in Edmonton among the enemy._

Both of them send crying laughing emojis his way, which Jared thinks is a good sign they’ll get along, and also a sign that both of them _suck_.

Once back at the hotel Jared mechanically puts enough calories in his mouth to sustain him — the food kind of sucks, all bland buffet shit — while Bryce and Chaz presumably drink less nourishing calories. How do they have the fucking _energy_? Is that a thing when you hit twenty, that training camp no longer murders you dead? All these people with energy to spare: Jared hates them.

Jared heads up to the room as soon as he finishes, grateful to have a bit of time to himself, hoping Brewer has energy enough to hang out in someone else’s for awhile. Maybe it kicks in when you’re nineteen. Jared hopes so. 

He changes into his PJs even though it’s early, flips through channels. He ends up flipping to find a preseason game between the Hitmen and the Oil Kings starting, and finds himself lingering on it. He hastily changes the channel when Brewer returns, because it’s probably not cool to be wistfully watching your WHL team play. It’s not even — Jared doesn’t technically _want_ to be there, because being there right now would mean he failed, he just — he doesn’t know how he feels about it. He doesn’t know how he feels about much lately, it seems.

He wishes he was out with Chaz and Bryce right now, but even that isn’t exactly true, because if he was there him and Bryce would be doing a whole charade of not being together. It’s probably for the best that no one even knows they _know_ each other, let alone anything else, because from Raf’s reactions, they weren’t exactly subtle when they were in the same place, and that was before they were even settled into what they had. It’d be excruciating, standing feet away from Bryce and pretending he wasn’t fucking crazy about him.

So Jared guesses there’s nowhere that would be a good place for him right now. Good to know.

“You okay?” Brewer asks, and Jared realises staring intently at — aw fuck, he turned the channel to cartoons. Great, he looks like a childish idiot instead of a nostalgic idiot.

“Fine,” Jared says. “Tired.”

“I feel you,” Brewer says, with a little head bob, then does the usual check Jared doesn’t need the bathroom before he showers. Jared turns off the TV when the shower starts, resists the urge to text Bryce. He’s busy with Chaz right now.

*

Jared would like, describe more of training camp, but he’s tired. He’s so tired all the time. He’s in this weird fugue where he is somehow simultaneously capable of zoning out for long stretches, but also is pushing his body to limits it isn’t comfortable going. He’s tired, and drained, and exhausted, and — those are all just synonyms for tired, Jared. Oh. Sore. He’s sore too.

Jared is pretty sure stretching shouldn’t hurt as much as it does right now, but then, his muscles are all mad at him, so what can he expect?

“Hey, Matheson,” Jared hears, and looks up to see one of the trainers. He hasn’t gotten all their names down, so this one is, for now, ‘the bald one’. “You’ve got to take it easy there, you’re asking to pull your groin if you keep stretching like that.”

And because the bald one is, you know, an NHL trainer, and not, well, Bryce, Jared does _not_ insult him, and _does_ let him adjust Jared to a safer, less potentially groin pulling position, while absolutely simmering in humiliation.

He can’t believe the first thing Bryce ever fucking said to him was about pulling his groin, and he was _right_. Jared is never, ever telling him about this. 

He does tell Raf when he gets to the locker room, because yeah, it’s embarrassing, but it’s kind of funny too. Jared’s capable of laughing at himself. Kinda. Sometimes.

Raf is also capable of laughing at Jared, judging by the string of _hahahaha_ that he gets in response.

 _B can never know_ , Jared texts him. It’s maybe a little paranoid not to use Bryce’s name, or even a masculine pronoun — it’s not like him and Raf are high profile enough to get hacked, like, at all — but he’s been doing fairly consistently from the start. One wrong person looking over a shoulder and they’re screwed.

 _Pft I’m telling this story at your wedding_ , Raf says.

Jared goes red, looks around to see if anyone’s noticed: the Hitmen made a damn game out of chirping him whenever he got blotchy, which was a vicious cycle of making him _more_ embarrassed, and thus more red, until either they got bored of it or every bit of blood in Jared’s body was in his cheeks, pretty much. He can’t believe he misses those assholes right now.

Thankfully no one’s paying attention to him, and Jared types out and then deletes at least three responses before settling on _Don’t break the bro code, Raf_ , which doesn’t really acknowledge the whole — shut up, Jared. And shut up, Raf.

Some sort of fight breaks out — well, play fight, Fitzgerald on the ground laughing hysterically while Rogers pummels him with not an ounce of real strength, and everyone starts cheering on one or the other, placing bets. Jared hears one of them put twenty on this ending in Rogers getting kneed in the balls, because ‘Fitzy fights like a rat’. 

Jared could have sworn he got called up to a team of adults, but apparently not. He thought better of Rogers. Not Fitzgerald, who seems determined to make up for being the shortest in the room by being the loudest in the room, but Rogers yes.

“Yes, it’s always like this,” Jacobi says, like Jared asked. It’s weird for Victor Jacobi to be talking to him. Jared’s hated the dude so long he thinks it’s down to his bones now, and he’s not sure if he’s actually as annoying as Jared expected or if it’s just Jared expects him to be annoying and has some confirmation bias going. At least he hasn’t pulled a Rogers and made himself annoyingly likable. That stuff’s bad for Jared’s worldview.

“So I’m definitely gonna do my best to get sent back down,” Jared says, and Jacobi laughs and claps him on the back. Everyone in Edmonton seems to think he’s hilarious, and it’s all based on the faulty assumption he’s joking.

“You’re fitting in okay,” Jacobi says, and Jared finds himself simultaneously taking that as a terrible insult, and kind of warming with praise.

“Aw, are you blushing?” Jacobi croons, and Jared goes back to insult. Definitely was an insult. Fuck all these guys.


End file.
